


Life Will Change

by FutabaSakura



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Bad Ending, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 14:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12170424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FutabaSakura/pseuds/FutabaSakura
Summary: While it should be better than stagnation, change isn't always for thebetter.





	Life Will Change

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback's appreciated but I'd rather you didn't pull any punches; tell me that _it's shite, and here's why_ , tell me that I'm _wretched and shouldn't ever write again_. I learn better this way, I think. Especially if it's the latter!  
>  Edited on 25/09/2017: reformatted and removed two unnecessary words.  
> Edited on 01/10/2017: Further edits pending. There are many things just _awful_ about this and I want to fix it.

The day had been damned from the start and she should have known, _she should have known_ , when she saw her beloved Feathermen figurines lying flat; some atop the shelf and some having fallen to the floor; it wasn’t just an accident overnight but an omen, a prophecy foretelling the day was going to be worse than normal, a particularly bad one - and _no_ , she was no fool for seeing this now, retrospectively, and believing it; she was a fool for not grasping its significance and instead thinking that the only problem was the position of her toys and that by standing each figure up again after making the necessary adjustments to put twisted limbs back in place, she could fix everything.

She couldn’t, not _everything_.

But had she understood, she may have had the emotional fortitude to withstand the upset she'd feel as her daily activities of escape and distraction such as posting on several forums (but never under the same name, the same persona because with each name came a chance to become someone better, anyone else would do) and watching anime provided no avenues of entertainment and spoiled her mood; she'd been growing more and more convinced that that anime was insipid and homogenised – one moe blob show to another – and friendliness and tact weren’t common practice on most of the sites she browsed. She may have been better prepared when she read the replies in one of her threads, most of which provided the ever helpful advice of ending it all or “just getting over it”. She may have handled the kidnapping of the protagonist’s family better, even if the ending had been spoiled and everything was to go in the hero’s favour anyway.  
She might not have compared her life to that of a fictional character's. She might not have felt so bitter that things in her life had gone _so wrong_.

The Feathermen were champions and fought to protect and help the weak. Even at their lowest, in the bleakest situations, they strive to help: had she understood their warning, she may have been more emotionally resilient, but she didn’t, so she wasn’t.

Whether the day would have been just fine but the figurines having fallen had lowered her mood and set things in motion or had been merely coincidental and she was going to go through such a severe episode sooner or later anyway, it was much too late for Futaba to care as she tucked her legs to her chest and pressed her hands to her ears, desperate to deafen herself to the voices but it was a futile effort and she knew it would be, had only ever known it to be futile for months, as the voices – the accusations – came from within and without and there was never any real hope to shut out the constant judgement and disparaging remarks when even her headphones failed her. There was neither music loud enough nor hands strong enough to block out the words which cut her to her core, deeper still than any blade could. But as much as the pressure hurt her ears at times and her legs would cramp, her mother’s voice hurt far more – more than the rest. If absolutely nothing else the discomfort was distracting.

Well, Futaba was nothing if not defiantly, _desperately_ hopeful in the face of abject hopelessness: for instance, she had made an effort to reach out to the so-called Phantom Thieves of Hearts and request their service, _hoping_ they’d be able to work their magic and change – **fix** \- her heart and somehow absolve her of sin, _hoping_ they wouldn’t lay bare her soul and find it wanting, though Futaba had been increasingly convinced they – **even they** , who seemed so earnest and passionate in their endeavours to fix the world – had done just that, thought her too late to save or, worse yet, her crimes were unforgivable, unwelcome in the world they sought to make and felt this a justified punishment; is redemption ever within reach of the selfish and petulant, whose constant needs, demands and tantrums push a woman who’s tired, so tired, over the edge and into oncoming traffic?  
Perhaps hope was too good for her and she should be denied that, too.

Futaba had always been a quick learner and her memory was remarkably good but it was in her darkest moments when this proved to be more of a curse than a blessing as she felt the need to read each entry in her exhaustive encyclopedia of enormities, fueling the raging inferno of her self-hatred and guilt already far beyond control further. At her lowest, she repeatedly relived the worst moments; as if she could ever forget the men, dressed in their crisp and dark suits with their immaculate hair and polished shoes, the picture perfect government officials who were in charge of reading her mother’s will, who seemed to openly hate her and held her in such overt disdain as they read her mother’s last handwritten note to her; as if she could ever forget her mother slur her words as she bit back her rage and sorrow in an unfinished sentence, punctuated only by throwing herself under a car!

She was occasionally able to comfort herself in thinking that the men in suits had at least the good grace to use terminology beyond her grasp, bliss in ignorance, and in doing so were being a little merciful whilst doing their job, that they were aware she was only, **only** , a simple and stupid girl who didn’t know any better and had made an honest mistake and perhaps they didn’t necessarily hate her but rather the circumstances in which they had become acquainted (however Futaba more often than not found this hard to swallow and believed they didn’t care enough to explain or perhaps felt her unworthy to understand the truth. She’d understand. She’d even agree). ‘Maternity neurosis’, they had called it but her uncle was right when he said it was all her fault, as everyone else in the family thought: she truly was “such a bother” and Wakaba shouldn’t have had her; bless her, she tried – she tried so hard for so long, too long. Futaba is a tumultuous ocean, battering cliffs until they gradually erode to sand.  
She’s seen this herself.

When at last the voices had torn from her their pound of flesh, they started to settle, as always, but the shame and guilt stained her a little more each time, dyed her darker in their colours and she found she could bear to be herself a little less. She sat properly in her chair after lowering her hands from her ears, returning them to their place on her mouse and keyboard but both felt heavy and cold, rigid and unfamiliar. They didn’t welcome her touch.

After all, she had stolen her mother’s life.  
It was never too late to return it, right?

The choked sound she made may have been a morbid and self-pitying chuckle or a sob.  
So few things mattered. So few things, she cared to think about.  
(But the heat to her eyelids, warmth continuing to roll down her cheeks and damp sleeves suggested the latter.)

She knew this could not continue, should not continue.

She'd not know peace unless she _made things right._

She doubted the reliability of an overdose but had a rough idea as to how to go about it and she certainly had the resources necessary though a durable bag and gas would have been better and incur less risk of failure, if only she had both readily available, and she knew full well the way rope can cut into flesh and certainly the way a good blade can do just the same. Like her crimes and the names of the books in her old school’s library, she wouldn’t forget.

Sojiro would be disappointed ( _again_ , she's convinced, but he's always hidden it well).

But now was as good a time as ever to remind herself, as she ventured out of her room and into the kitchen, with one _quest item_ in mind and soon in hand. She whispered an apology to the man who wasn’t there for the inconvenience, the closest she’s had to a father, a man she’s not yet broken but would in time.

New Game Plus awaited her.

There’s no time like the present.

And a hot bath sounded just _lovely_.

**Author's Note:**

> oh dear cod warfare  
> i think what makes this worse is the realisation that futaba's suicide would ruin the lives of so many people rather than save them  
> actually no its the purple prose i cram in when i think im not doing enough i mean seriously this is... this is bad
> 
> anyway, ive wanted to do a piece like this for, like, three days now and its so good to actually want to do something again even if its actually quite horrible but you know what i feel alive yeah  
> i kinda want to do more and certainly more cheerful pieces and i saw some sort of transtaba thing which really strikes me as Pretty Groovy but eye dee kay  
> aaaaaaaa heck  
> emojis break notes hahaha


End file.
